A recipient of the University of Rochester\u2019s 2021 Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Weaver teaches about the partition of Ireland as part of his course Great Britain and Ireland since 1800.<\/p>\n
\n
Q&A<\/strong><\/h3>\nWhat factors led to the partition of Ireland?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- The northern region of Ulster has been culturally distinct from the rest of the Ireland since before the Protestant Reformation.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER:<\/strong> Northern Ireland is made up of six of the nine counties of the traditional Irish region of Ulster. This is where I start on the topic of Irish partition in my course. Ulster has always been, in some ways, culturally distinct from the rest of Ireland, even before the Protestant Reformation. Ironically, it was in some ways the most Gaelic of Irish regions; before and after the Reformation it was the most resistant to English rule, which is ironic considering that Ulster is now the most loyalist, unionist region of Ireland.<\/p>\n\n![\"Map](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ireland-four-provinces.jpg\")
\nFour Provinces<\/strong>
\nIreland\u2014the island made up of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland\u2014includes four traditional regions, or \u201cprovinces\u201d: Ulster in the north, Munster in the south, Leinster in the east, and Connaught in the west. They have no legal status today, but share distinct histories and identities.<\/span>![\"outline](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ireland-provinces-northern-ireland.jpg\")
\nNorthern Ireland<\/strong>
\nNorthern Ireland, outlined in black, is made up of six counties of the nine-county region of Ulster. The exclusion of the three counties, which had nationalist majorities, ensured a unionist majority in Northern Ireland\u2014but also a large nationalist minority. (The original map posted on May 10, 2021 inaccurately drew the boundary of Northern Ireland. A corrected map was posted on September 24, 2021. We apologize for the error.)<\/em><\/span><\/div>\nThe whole conflict that led to partition reduces fundamentally to the failure of the Reformation in Ireland and the fact that it threw up a confessional divide between the British generally: between the English, the Welsh, the Scots\u2014and the Irish, who remained largely Catholic.<\/p>\n
How did Ulster become predominantly unionist?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- The evolution began when the Gaelic lords fled and King James I initiated the settlement of Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>The event known as the Flight of the Earls<\/a>\u2014when Gaelic lords of Ulster fled in 1607\u2014left the region open and vulnerable to English and Scottish settlement. Under the Stuart monarchs, starting with James I, land ownership in Ulster was transferred from native Ulster Catholics to mostly Scottish Presbyterians, as well as some English Protestants, over the course of the 17th century. It\u2019s true that most of Ireland was occupied and to varying degrees planted and seized by British landowners and aristocrats over the course of the 17th century. But in the south, it was mostly English Anglican Protestants who had a lot more in common with Catholicism, and with the Catholic peasantry, than did these Calvinist Presbyterians of Ulster.<\/p>\nSo that made Ulster culturally and confessionally distinct. And the Irish problem arose over the course of the modern period because, in the post-Enlightenment period in the 19th century, there was an intensification of Ireland\u2019s Catholic identity, especially after the famine, and a deepening of Catholicism and of Irish consciousness and Irish political identity. At the same time, even though the north of Ireland was majority Protestant, they too had come to think of themselves as Irish. All of these factors hardened Protestant suspicion in the north and their reluctance to be drawn into an independent Ireland in the south.<\/p>\n![\"Crowd](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ulster-welcomes-king-queen-1921.jpg\")
A banner on Belfast\u2019s Robinson and Cleaver Department Store reads \u201cUlster Welcomes Her King & Queen.\u201d Crowds are gathered as King George V arrives to celebrate the opening of the first parliament of Northern Ireland in 1921, and to address the body. (National Library of Ireland on the Commons \/ Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhat role did World War I play?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- A rebellion against British rule by Irish nationalists\u2014at a time when Britain was under heavy siege\u2014set the stage for partition.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>The war intensely complicated the situation. Most of Ireland at the outbreak of war in 1914 remained loyal to the United Kingdom. Indeed, the British Army successfully raised Irish regiments for the war on the Western Front in Europe. So it\u2019s not true that Ireland, in general, chose this moment to rebel.<\/p>\nBut the Easter Rebels did. This was the Easter Rising<\/a>\u2014famously the moment in 1916 when the most intransigent, the most committed, the most culturally Republican and Catholic nationalists chose to rise up in Dublin in rebellion against British rule. (The original version of this story posted on May 10, 2021, referred to \u201cEnglish rule\u201d\u00a0during World War I. It was corrected on January 20, 2022, to read \u201cBritish rule.\u201d\u00a0We apologize for the error.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Shelled](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Dublin-after-1916-easter-uprising.jpg\")
The General Post Office in Dublin\u2014the headquarters of Irish nationalists of the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the 1916 Easter Rising\u2014was gutted by British forces in a swift military response to the rebellion. (National Library of Ireland on The Commons \/ Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nTheir subsequent execution and martyrdom intensely complicated the situation. In the south, the once-unpopular Easter rebels immediately became national heroes. But in the north, their rebellion was regarded as a profound act of betrayal against Great Britain in its time of desperate need, and it heightened the resolve of protestants\u2014who, of course, had been deeply loyal to the United Kingdom during World War I\u2014not to be drawn into a united and independent Ireland. The First World War led to bitter resentment against Irish republicanism in both Britain and Ulster and it made reconciliation between Ireland\u2019s Catholic and Protestant communities impossible in the aftermath of the war. It\u2019s no coincidence that the partition happened in the immediate aftermath of the war.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s partition is not what Britain originally had in mind. What went wrong?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- Irish nationalists did not recognize the 1920 act to establish home rule but keep Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>The Government of Ireland Act was designed to create two separate Home Rule territories, both of which would remain in the United Kingdom\u2014a Northern Ireland and a Southern Ireland\u2014that would both be quasi-autonomous, self-governing entities of the United Kingdom. But Irish nationalists had unilaterally declared an independent Ireland and launched a guerrilla campaign\u2014the Irish War of Independence, or Anglo-Irish War<\/a> (1919\u201321) and refused to recognize the act; they refused to reconcile themselves to remaining within the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n![\"July](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fea-partition-ireland-630x378.jpg\")
Irishmen and women hold a prayer vigil on London\u2019s Downing Street in July 1921, as negotiations take place with Irish nationalists. The United Kingdom\u2019s compromises with the nationalists had the unintended effect of further entrenching partition. (National Library of Ireland on The Commons @ Flickr Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn December 1921, the British reconciled themselves to the nationalists\u2019 demands and created an Irish Free State in the 26 counties of the south. Those counties were not yet an Irish Republic; they were a dominion within the British Empire, but no longer a part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Free State went its own way and in 1949 became the Republic of Ireland. So that was one critical respect in which partition did not go the way the British had meant it to.<\/p>\n
Looking in the rearview mirror, what were the biggest mistakes?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- The boundary left a large Catholic minority within Northern Ireland, governed by a discriminatory Ulster Unionist Party.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>They set themselves up for trouble right away with the way the border was drawn. The expectation at the time was that Northern Ireland would be left with the Protestant majority parts of Ulster, which only would have been four of the nine traditional counties. The thinking was that the area would simply be too small a state to be viable and that Northern Ireland would therefore eventually have to reconcile itself to inclusion within the Irish Free State. But the Irish Boundary Commission, established in the treaty ending the Anglo\u2013Irish War, ultimately included six of the nine counties of Ulster within Northern Ireland, and that left a lot of nationalist areas like Tyrone, Fermanagh, and Omagh, all of which were Catholic-majority areas, stranded in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\nThat fact made Northern Ireland a bigger entity than anyone had expected it to be and also heightened the animosities on both sides. It resulted in a resentful Catholic minority within Northern Ireland. Students often misunderstand this; they think of Northern Ireland as the Protestant-majority part of Ireland. And while it is the Protestant-majority part of Ireland, at the time of the division, about a third of the Northern Irish were Catholic.<\/p>\n![\"1926](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/NI-religion-1926.png\")
While Northern Ireland had a clear Protestant majority when it was established, it also had a substantial Catholic minority\u2014larger than many students realize, says Weaver.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNorthern Ireland\u2019s response to having an unreconciled, unhappy, large Catholic minority in their midst, was essentially to create a Protestant unionist one-party state, which governed with a heavy hand, to say the least. The Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland wrote into law rampant discrimination against Catholics\u2014in housing, employment, education, and job opportunities.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Irish Republic was also effectively a one-party state, strongly committed to cultural nationalism, with a lot of influence from the Roman Catholic Church, including a heavy infusion of doctrinaire Catholicism in the constitution. That was bound to heighten the resistance of Ulster Protestants to inclusion within anything like a united Ireland.<\/p>\n
It was really a situation that was bound to explode at some point. And, indeed, when the civil rights movement in the 1960s came along, it did, with a 30-year period of violence, the Troubles<\/a>.<\/p>\nHow has Brexit affected the politics of partition?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- \n
- The northern region of Ulster has been culturally distinct from the rest of the Ireland since before the Protestant Reformation.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER:<\/strong> Northern Ireland is made up of six of the nine counties of the traditional Irish region of Ulster. This is where I start on the topic of Irish partition in my course. Ulster has always been, in some ways, culturally distinct from the rest of Ireland, even before the Protestant Reformation. Ironically, it was in some ways the most Gaelic of Irish regions; before and after the Reformation it was the most resistant to English rule, which is ironic considering that Ulster is now the most loyalist, unionist region of Ireland.<\/p>\n
\n
\nFour Provinces<\/strong>
\nIreland\u2014the island made up of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland\u2014includes four traditional regions, or \u201cprovinces\u201d: Ulster in the north, Munster in the south, Leinster in the east, and Connaught in the west. They have no legal status today, but share distinct histories and identities.<\/span>
\nNorthern Ireland<\/strong>
\nNorthern Ireland, outlined in black, is made up of six counties of the nine-county region of Ulster. The exclusion of the three counties, which had nationalist majorities, ensured a unionist majority in Northern Ireland\u2014but also a large nationalist minority. (The original map posted on May 10, 2021 inaccurately drew the boundary of Northern Ireland. A corrected map was posted on September 24, 2021. We apologize for the error.)<\/em><\/span><\/div>\nThe whole conflict that led to partition reduces fundamentally to the failure of the Reformation in Ireland and the fact that it threw up a confessional divide between the British generally: between the English, the Welsh, the Scots\u2014and the Irish, who remained largely Catholic.<\/p>\n
How did Ulster become predominantly unionist?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- \n
- The evolution began when the Gaelic lords fled and King James I initiated the settlement of Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>The event known as the Flight of the Earls<\/a>\u2014when Gaelic lords of Ulster fled in 1607\u2014left the region open and vulnerable to English and Scottish settlement. Under the Stuart monarchs, starting with James I, land ownership in Ulster was transferred from native Ulster Catholics to mostly Scottish Presbyterians, as well as some English Protestants, over the course of the 17th century. It\u2019s true that most of Ireland was occupied and to varying degrees planted and seized by British landowners and aristocrats over the course of the 17th century. But in the south, it was mostly English Anglican Protestants who had a lot more in common with Catholicism, and with the Catholic peasantry, than did these Calvinist Presbyterians of Ulster.<\/p>\n
So that made Ulster culturally and confessionally distinct. And the Irish problem arose over the course of the modern period because, in the post-Enlightenment period in the 19th century, there was an intensification of Ireland\u2019s Catholic identity, especially after the famine, and a deepening of Catholicism and of Irish consciousness and Irish political identity. At the same time, even though the north of Ireland was majority Protestant, they too had come to think of themselves as Irish. All of these factors hardened Protestant suspicion in the north and their reluctance to be drawn into an independent Ireland in the south.<\/p>\n
A banner on Belfast\u2019s Robinson and Cleaver Department Store reads \u201cUlster Welcomes Her King & Queen.\u201d Crowds are gathered as King George V arrives to celebrate the opening of the first parliament of Northern Ireland in 1921, and to address the body. (National Library of Ireland on the Commons \/ Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n What role did World War I play?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- \n
- A rebellion against British rule by Irish nationalists\u2014at a time when Britain was under heavy siege\u2014set the stage for partition.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>The war intensely complicated the situation. Most of Ireland at the outbreak of war in 1914 remained loyal to the United Kingdom. Indeed, the British Army successfully raised Irish regiments for the war on the Western Front in Europe. So it\u2019s not true that Ireland, in general, chose this moment to rebel.<\/p>\n
But the Easter Rebels did. This was the Easter Rising<\/a>\u2014famously the moment in 1916 when the most intransigent, the most committed, the most culturally Republican and Catholic nationalists chose to rise up in Dublin in rebellion against British rule. (The original version of this story posted on May 10, 2021, referred to \u201cEnglish rule\u201d\u00a0during World War I. It was corrected on January 20, 2022, to read \u201cBritish rule.\u201d\u00a0We apologize for the error.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
The General Post Office in Dublin\u2014the headquarters of Irish nationalists of the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the 1916 Easter Rising\u2014was gutted by British forces in a swift military response to the rebellion. (National Library of Ireland on The Commons \/ Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Their subsequent execution and martyrdom intensely complicated the situation. In the south, the once-unpopular Easter rebels immediately became national heroes. But in the north, their rebellion was regarded as a profound act of betrayal against Great Britain in its time of desperate need, and it heightened the resolve of protestants\u2014who, of course, had been deeply loyal to the United Kingdom during World War I\u2014not to be drawn into a united and independent Ireland. The First World War led to bitter resentment against Irish republicanism in both Britain and Ulster and it made reconciliation between Ireland\u2019s Catholic and Protestant communities impossible in the aftermath of the war. It\u2019s no coincidence that the partition happened in the immediate aftermath of the war.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s partition is not what Britain originally had in mind. What went wrong?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- \n
- Irish nationalists did not recognize the 1920 act to establish home rule but keep Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>The Government of Ireland Act was designed to create two separate Home Rule territories, both of which would remain in the United Kingdom\u2014a Northern Ireland and a Southern Ireland\u2014that would both be quasi-autonomous, self-governing entities of the United Kingdom. But Irish nationalists had unilaterally declared an independent Ireland and launched a guerrilla campaign\u2014the Irish War of Independence, or Anglo-Irish War<\/a> (1919\u201321) and refused to recognize the act; they refused to reconcile themselves to remaining within the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Irishmen and women hold a prayer vigil on London\u2019s Downing Street in July 1921, as negotiations take place with Irish nationalists. The United Kingdom\u2019s compromises with the nationalists had the unintended effect of further entrenching partition. (National Library of Ireland on The Commons @ Flickr Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n In December 1921, the British reconciled themselves to the nationalists\u2019 demands and created an Irish Free State in the 26 counties of the south. Those counties were not yet an Irish Republic; they were a dominion within the British Empire, but no longer a part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Free State went its own way and in 1949 became the Republic of Ireland. So that was one critical respect in which partition did not go the way the British had meant it to.<\/p>\n
Looking in the rearview mirror, what were the biggest mistakes?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- \n
- The boundary left a large Catholic minority within Northern Ireland, governed by a discriminatory Ulster Unionist Party.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
WEAVER: <\/strong>They set themselves up for trouble right away with the way the border was drawn. The expectation at the time was that Northern Ireland would be left with the Protestant majority parts of Ulster, which only would have been four of the nine traditional counties. The thinking was that the area would simply be too small a state to be viable and that Northern Ireland would therefore eventually have to reconcile itself to inclusion within the Irish Free State. But the Irish Boundary Commission, established in the treaty ending the Anglo\u2013Irish War, ultimately included six of the nine counties of Ulster within Northern Ireland, and that left a lot of nationalist areas like Tyrone, Fermanagh, and Omagh, all of which were Catholic-majority areas, stranded in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
That fact made Northern Ireland a bigger entity than anyone had expected it to be and also heightened the animosities on both sides. It resulted in a resentful Catholic minority within Northern Ireland. Students often misunderstand this; they think of Northern Ireland as the Protestant-majority part of Ireland. And while it is the Protestant-majority part of Ireland, at the time of the division, about a third of the Northern Irish were Catholic.<\/p>\n
While Northern Ireland had a clear Protestant majority when it was established, it also had a substantial Catholic minority\u2014larger than many students realize, says Weaver.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Northern Ireland\u2019s response to having an unreconciled, unhappy, large Catholic minority in their midst, was essentially to create a Protestant unionist one-party state, which governed with a heavy hand, to say the least. The Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland wrote into law rampant discrimination against Catholics\u2014in housing, employment, education, and job opportunities.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Irish Republic was also effectively a one-party state, strongly committed to cultural nationalism, with a lot of influence from the Roman Catholic Church, including a heavy infusion of doctrinaire Catholicism in the constitution. That was bound to heighten the resistance of Ulster Protestants to inclusion within anything like a united Ireland.<\/p>\n
It was really a situation that was bound to explode at some point. And, indeed, when the civil rights movement in the 1960s came along, it did, with a 30-year period of violence, the Troubles<\/a>.<\/p>\n
How has Brexit affected the politics of partition?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- The boundary left a large Catholic minority within Northern Ireland, governed by a discriminatory Ulster Unionist Party.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Irish nationalists did not recognize the 1920 act to establish home rule but keep Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- A rebellion against British rule by Irish nationalists\u2014at a time when Britain was under heavy siege\u2014set the stage for partition.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- The evolution began when the Gaelic lords fled and King James I initiated the settlement of Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Irish](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/irish-nationalist-protest-april-2021-630x444.jpg\")
![\"Northern](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/NI-religion-2011.png\")